The Red Pill (Film)

"Have you ever been through something and you don't know what just happened, but you know it was important to go through? This is that journey for me".

—Cassie Jaye

The Red Pill is an American documentary film about the Men's Rights Movement. It was made in 2016 by film director and actor Cassie Jaye, who was both the director and the producer. It was released on October 7th, 2016.

The idea of the film began as a criticism of the Men's Rights Movement, as Jaye was a feminist who considered the Men's Rights Movement to be a hate movement. Another factor in the making of the film was Jaye seeking to find out why people who claimed not to be misogynists supported Men's Rights, especially since the producers she approach only agreed to fund the documentary on the condition that it was given a pro-feminism bias. Over the course of a year, Jaye did numerous interviews and research, which was complied and edited into this film. As a result of this, the film is a chronicle of her journey into the origins and motives of true Men's Rights activism and equality through a male lens to the world.

There has been criticism of the film, as in some ways it is framed to suggest that Jaye, an oft-typecasted "Dumb Blonde" in her previous short-lived acting career, is denouncing feminism. However, it is a personal story of a personal journey and can be given validity as such. The documentary largely focuses on the societal double standards around legal recourse for men as "masculine" compared to women: both standards and media representation of marriage and childcare, rape and abuse, appropriate jobs and workplace conditions.

The documentary is not to be confused with Red Pill, Blue Pill, the trope after which it is named and is indirectly inspired by.

Tropes used in The Red Pill (Film) include:

The Baby Trap: Activists within the film cite that if a woman enacts this on a man (such as through the method colloquially known as "spermjacking"), he has little to no legal recourse from being saddled with a child he didn't want or wasn't prepared for. In some cases, men are legally obligated to care for the child of a woman they're in a relationship with, even if they're not the biological father. One of the activists Jaye interviewed even said he married his wife because she employed this trope on him, along with describing how hard she made his life in their custody battle.
- France's banning of "at-will" paternity tests without a court order - which limits options for men to refute paternity claims - is one of the examples Activists give.
Both Sides Have a Point: The film's ulimate message demonstrates this trope for the Men's Right's Movement and feminism. Jaye focused the film on the Men's Right's Movement from the beginning for several reasons, including the Men's Rights Movement's comparative under-representation in media. Cassie Jaye also acknowledged that the Men's Rights Movement has a point and that MRAs have a few legitimate grievances, even when she disapproved of it.
Double Standard Abuse: The film unpacks this trope in exploring domestic abuse against men and societal responses. Cassie also interviewed several male domestic abuse victims who were abused by their female partners but received no help from the legal system (one of the men was even told if his partner hurt herself striking him, he would be prosecuted instead). Several of the Men's Rights Activists interviewed also pointed out that almost no abuse shelters in the United States took in male domestic abuse victims.
- The controversial program The Duluth Model is deconstructed in the film because it's the most widely used batterer intervention program in the United States despite numerous criticisms - mainly the fact that it declares men to be the only perpetrators of domestic violence and as a result completely fails to help male victims and prosecute female perpetrators of domestic abuse.
False Rape Accusation: In the documentary, Cassie interviewed several men who told her they were subjected to this by women in their lives. She also discusses how damning this accusation is, especially for men and how it can destroy the lives of accused men.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics: Cassie explores the various methods by which domestic abuse statistics are often misrepresented (such as in news media or fiction) or selectively applied in ways that only male domestic abusers are prosecuted. By the same token, Cassie also discusses how this is used to misrepresent or completely exclude male domestic abuse victims from domestic abuse studies.
Men Are the Expendable Gender: Defying this trope is one of the main points of this film. One of the more prominent issues discussed, alongside the double standards in the handling of domestic abuse, is the fact that women are exempt from the draft This something Jaye acknowledged was in women's favor even back when she hated the Men's Rights Movement. This was a prominent part of the discussion with Men's Rights Activist Paul Elam. Other ways this is explored are discussions of how society largely sidelines men's issues or focuses on women's issues at the expense of men's issues; two prominent examples are the lack of support and awareness campaigns for prostate cancer compared breast cancer despite their similar death rates and how high fatality jobs are disproportionately staffed by men (leading to them being the majority of work fatalities) despite the pushing of gender hiring quotas focused on gender equality.
Real Men Don't Cry: This trope is defied, as some of the men interviewed cry when recounting their experiences and neither Cassie nor the film treats this negatively.
Shout-Out: The film has a few in both its title and tagline.
- The film's title is a reference to the concept and slang phrase "red pill" from Men's Rights Activists along with supporters and members of the MGTOW (standing for "Men Going Their Own Way") community. The name references the Red Pill, Blue Pill trope made famous by the film The Matrix. The slang refers to the concept of seeing that society is harmful to men and rejecting what society and the mainstream expects of men and women (this view is the "red pill" of the concept and accepting this is considered "taking the red pill" while not seeing this is referred to as being "blue pill" and rejecting the MGTOW concept after being informed of it is what's considered "taking the blue pill").
- The film's tagline "Down the rabbit hole of gender politics" is a double reference The Matrix and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In the Matrix, Morpheus's description of the effects of the Red Pill is that it will show showing the main character "how deep the rabbit hole goes." The term "going down the rabbit hole" is a slang term for entering into either the unknown or the disorienting, and this documentary is intended to show gender politics - a controversial subject - from a perspective rarely depicted in media.
Sympathetic POV: A major thing that sets this film apart from others on the subject is how it presents the Men's Right Movement and Men's Rights Activists in a positive light. Whether the film is overtly supportive of the movement or not is debated.
Missing White Woman Syndrome: Though the focus is on the gender component rather than the racial component, several activists cited that news media tends to give greater coverage to female homicide victims than male homicide victims.